Pragmatics in Bakuli: a Linguistic Ethnographer’S Notes from the Neighborhood

108 Pragmatics in Bakuli: A Linguistic Ethnographer’s Notes from the Neighborhood Nico Nassenstein Department of Anthropology and African Studies JGU Mainz [email protected] Abstract This contribution offers insights into contemporary language practices in the Ugandan capital Kampala where Rwandans and Burundians, Congolese traders, refugees and travelers meet and interact. Speakers in Bakuli, a vibrant neighborhood of the Ugandan capital, do not seem to categorize themselves according to geolinguistic lines of national belonging, instead language appears to be fluid and permeable. Based on an experience- based and reflection-based approach pursuing a linguistic ethnography, my preliminary contribution compares processes of “(un)doing” language(s) in the context of colonial nation-building with recent contexts of conflict migration. Central questions are: Which strategies do specifically contemporary migrants from Rwanda and Burundi employ to subvert and play with the differences between both languages and break language boundaries? How do they create a new language-in-between that includes emblematic features of both Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, making a clear indication of nationality and national categorization therefore impossible? In the framework of a “pragmatics of place”, this ethnographic note intends to show how concepts of place/space contribute to a change in meaning of linguistic varieties and their speakers’ (internal) selfing strategies, as well as to a rearrangement of external categorizations of speakers, ethnic groups and geolinguistic belonging. Keywords: pragmatics of place, fluidity, language boundaries, linguistic ethnography, Kinyarwanda-Kirundi 1. Introduction: On space, place and the context of language use in Uganda Bakuli is a lively neighborhood in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, where refugees, traders (selling arms, trucks, conflict minerals, and much more) and travelers from all across East and Central Africa meet, negotiate, visit strip clubs, connect to other bus lines to Nairobi (Kenya), Goma (DR Congo), or to Bujumbura (Burundi) and Kigali (Rwanda), interact with sex workers or share a drink. Most interactions around these spots are commonly held in either Kinyarwanda or Kirundi, two strikingly similar and mutually intelligible Bantu languages1 from Rwanda and Burundi, where most refugees and vendors originate 1 I refer to Kinyarwanda and Kirundi here (and in the following) as “languages” in order to bring the reader closer to the geographical and linguistic background of this study, Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 2(2020), 108–127 Pragmatics in Bakuli: A Linguistic Ethnographer’s Notes from the Neighborhood 109 from. These two Bantu languages are spoken by approximately 20 million speakers all throughout the Central African nation states of Rwanda and Burundi, as well as through parts of Eastern DR Congo and Uganda. In a more detailed historical study, I have tried to sketch the history of these two languages and the role of missionaries and of the colonial administration in their emergence and implementation over time (Nassenstein 2019). Kinyarwanda and Kirundi share a common history: The varieties used in schools nowadays both emerged out of colonial processes of choosing among closely-related dialects, which were then transformed into official or national languages. According to a Bantuist tradition in African Linguistics, the Kinyarwanda-Kirundi dialect continuum is subsumed under the letter-digit combination JD60 (based on the classification suggested by linguist Malcolm Guthrie 1967–1971 and later by Jouni Filip Maho in 2009). Among the widely acknowledged varieties, mostly the national languages Kinyarwanda and Kirundi are known and commonly listed. Some others, specifically those spoken outside of both countries, are sometimes listed, too, namely Kinyabwisha and Kinyamulenge (see Nassenstein 2018a, among others) in Eastern DR Congo and Rufumbira as spoken in southwestern Uganda (Nassenstein 2016). The fact that most traders, passengers and refugees in the Bakuli neighborhood are proficient in either Kinyarwanda or Kirundi has historical reasons due to early waves of migration from Rwanda to Uganda in the 1960s as well as in subsequent decades. In more recent times, a large number of Burundian refugees migrated to Uganda, triggered by the outbreak of violent conflict in Burundi in 2015. Congolese individuals, mostly speakers of closely-related languages, too, have been present in Uganda due to trade and also persecution, such as a larger community of Banyamulenge refugees from South Kivu province. For all these, Uganda has either been a safe haven, an attractive spot for trading or a stopover on their trip through East Africa. Also students from Rwanda often choose Ugandan universities as their preferred institutions. It is not surprising that these events, i.e. political conflict in the area and trajectories of larger groups of migrants, are a direct consequence of power inequalities whose foundations were laid in colonial times. The “pragmatics of place” of Kinyarwanda- and Kirundi-speaking individuals in a neighborhood of Uganda’s capital therefore serve as a critical reflection of colonial constructions of “imagined communities” (Anderson 1982) and how these are bound to specific places. The unboundedness of speakers in Bakuli, Kampala, reveals a conscious reconfiguration of these ideas of ethnolinguistic and geolinguistic belonging through creative practice. clarifying the emergence of specific systems of classifying spoken practice as named and assorted languages. I do not intend to repeat processes of artefactualization/reification of colonial language-making in my paper, nor to substitute former categories with more recent ones. In the course of this work, the difficulty of dealing with hybrid registers that have emerged out of named languages will be further addressed. Recent literature on problems of fixity and fluidity of language(s) also provides helpful approaches that show how linguists are often trapped in their own categories (see, among many others, Jaspers & Madsen 2018; Sabino 2018). Nico Nassenstein 110 In their colonial context, these two languages, which were rather two ways of speaking of a dialect continuum than separate entities, were created, artefactualized and prescribed in grammars and dictionaries by German and Belgian authorities (from approximately 1894 to 1961/2). Until today, these languages are used in the education system of both countries and index a strong national belonging in Rwanda and Burundi, as “official languages” beneath others (French and English in Burundi; French, English and Swahili in Rwanda). Speakers who were—according to the languages they spoke in each of the German Protektorate (until 1916) and later Belgian colonies (until 1961/62)—clearly associated with either Rwanda or Burundi as users of either of these two languages, then migrated in large numbers to neighboring Uganda, often settling in (or frequenting) Bakuli, a place that already had a considerable number of Kinyarwanda-speaking and Kirundi-speaking visitors, travelers and inhabitants. In Bakuli, however, migrants often play with the indexical value of certain linguistic realizations (Kinyarwanda as “the language of Rwandans” vs. Kirundi as “the language of Burundians”) and thus modify their language with a high degree of fluidity according to their social needs: Accents are imitated, the lexicon is adapted, and Rwandans turn into Burundians, while Burundians turn into Rwandans. Linguistic accommodation (Giles & Smith 1979), convergence and divergence and language crossing (Rampton 1995) are some of the linguistic processes that could be observed in Bakuli, showing that “complex hybridic forms of communication have evolved in which pragmatic practices from different languages and ethnic groups are subtly combined” (Anchimbe & Janney 2011: 1451). These practices of undoing differences guarantee security or may improve one’s position in business transactions; “being Rwandan” vs. “being Burundian” index very complex associations. These practices of mimicry, mimesis and of fluid adaptation largely have to do with colonial place-making and constructions of belonging2, which were either too rigid in terms of speakers’ localization and portray them as static, immobile and bound to one national language or as too simplistic in terms of speakers’ multilingual repertoires omitting that they constantly expand their repertoires based on encounters, trajectories, and so on. But which role does the Bakuli neighborhood as a place of encounters play? Historically, the Ugandan capital Kampala was constructed on seven hills. The early Anglican missionaries and later the British colonial government named the newly established town after the central hill where the royal palace of the Buganda court was located, Mengo. In close proximity to Mengo lies Old Kampala Hill, which holds the vibrant neighborhood Bakuli. Its denomination is derived from the British commissioner of Uganda, Ernest James Berkeley, the successor of Colonel Colville, who presided over Kampala until 1894 and led the invasions from Buganda into Bunyoro Kingdom. Berkeley, bantuized to its present form Bakuli, was therefore one of the earliest well- 2 The “mixing” of both languages could, apart from its potential as a place-making- strategy, also be seen as register tied to a specific kind of lifestyle in which it is an advantage not to be clearly identifiable—and to fleeting interactions and encounters in a transit

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